Cold Specks slowly warming to the spotlight

Mike Bell, Postmedia News11.21.2012

Struggling with the confessional nature of her material, the singer-songwriter known as Al Spx says her next record will be written from the perspective of a character. "When I play a character I'm not attached to the song because it was written by a different person, if that makes any sense. Or at least in my head."

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You think you need a vacation?

Sure. You probably do. I'm sure you've worked hard the past 11 months, doing whatever it is you do. And you're probably eyeing a little parcel of time in December where you plan on parking yourself for some you time, family time, anything-but-work time, and I'm very sure you're entitled to it.

But if there's someone out there who's truly earned it, who doesn't just want it, but really, really needs a break, it's difficult to think of someone more deserving than Al Spx, the pseudonymous singer behind the musical project Cold Specks.

"Hell, yeah," Spx says and laughs.

She'll get that break beginning in mid-December, which the artist without a home says she'll spend couch-surfing with friends and family in Toronto, resting up before heading to Germany in mid-January for yet another tour.

Again, yes, a well-deserved rest. It has been a remarkably busy 2012 for the Canadian artist who shot to fame and acclaim with the release of her hauntingly soulful Polaris-shortlisted roots debut I Predict A Graceful Expulsion.

On the strength of the album and buzz it's brought, she's toured extensively, including on her own and as tour support for everyone from Adam Cohen to Great Lake Swimmers. In fact, the 24-year-old's two-night stint this weekend at the Calgary folk fest's new Festival Hall in Inglewood will actually mark her third trip to town in the past six months.

Still, with how busy she's been this year, she can still appreciate the opportunities it's provided her.

"It's been fun," Spx says simply.

That, actually, is something of a surprise to hear in some respects, considering how private an individual she is -- as previously noted, Al Spx is a name she adopted for privacy's sake -- and how she initially seemed to want to shrink when the spotlight hit her directly.

"I struggled it with it early on only because it was a very new thing and a very strange thing," she admits. "But I've got my head around it, so it's all good now.

That includes actually talking about the rather autumnal material that makes up Expulsion, seemingly so naked, pained and passionate, but songs she, at times in interviews denied any emotional ownership over.

"I think that was just me attempting to deflect a question and not wanting to get into it," she, again, admits. "I may or may not have told a white lie, but these are deeply personal songs. . . .

"I don't mind writing songs that are honest but once you put it out there it no longer belongs to you and there are all of these strangers that dissect and analyze something that was probably very real to you at some point in your life. I found that very hard."

She adds: "I'm sure as hell not doing that again."

Which is something of a tricky thing, considering it's that connection to the songs, that confessional tone that the album has which is most striking, and which helped it strike the nerve it did.

Spx is well aware of the artistic corner she's painted herself into and plans on getting around that by cloaking the material a little better, perhaps getting a little metaphorical, a "bit more vague." She also thinks that it helps to remove herself even further by writing her own experiences as those of a second or third party, although, she says, that certainly won't require taking on yet another name.

"I think Cold Specks is always going to be the project's' name, but I'm just probably going to embrace a character a bit more," she says. "When I play a character I'm not attached to the song because it was written by a different person, if that makes any sense. Or at least in my head."

Then again, perhaps she won't need to do much role-playing. Spx has already started writing some new songs for her sophomore album -- she'll perform at least one, as-yet-unnamed tune for Calgary audiences -- and owing in part to the year she's had and all that it's brought her, both good and bad, she says her songs have been taking on an entirely different tone.

"I've been writing more playful songs," she says. "It's a combination of things. One, I'm in a much better place in my life and that has generated happier songs. Two, I did the whole earnest songwriter of honest songs thing and I wasn't quite comfortable with it."For more on Cold Specks, visit coldspecks.com.

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